Claude Sonnet 5.5 vs MiniMax M3.1 Flash
Claude Sonnet 5.5 leads MiniMax M3.1 Flash on coding, 87.3 to 59.0 on the Vibe Coding Index, and MiniMax M3.1 Flash costs 16.7x less per output token ($0.60 vs $10.00 per million). Updated October 22, 2026; 20 benchmarks have a result for both.
Claude Sonnet 5.5 or MiniMax M3.1 Flash: which to pick
Pick Claude Sonnet 5.5 for coding: it scores 87.3 on the Vibe Coding Index against 59.0 for MiniMax M3.1 Flash.
Pick MiniMax M3.1 Flash for output tokens 16.7x cheaper ($0.60 vs $10.00 per million) and work measured by LiveBench browser or LiveBench data analysis, where it leads.
- Shared results
- 20
- Claude Sonnet 5.5 only
- 78
- MiniMax M3.1 Flash only
- 0
- Like-for-like categories
- 6 of 9
Only benchmarks that tested both models count toward a pick; a result only one model has is shown but not compared.
Which one for your work
Each card is decided by one number both models carry. Where only one has it, the card says so and makes no call.
Coding
Vibe Coding Index, six public coding benchmarks
Claude Sonnet 5.5
Claude Sonnet 5.5 scores 87.3 against 59.0.
5 and 4 benchmarks behind the scores
Intelligence
AA Intelligence Index
Claude Sonnet 5.5
Claude Sonnet 5.5 leads, 56.0 against 42.7.
Same board, both measured
Web design
Design Arena: websites
No call
Only Claude Sonnet 5.5 has a Design Arena: websites result, 1327.
Directional only
General
Vals Index
Claude Sonnet 5.5
Claude Sonnet 5.5 leads, 70.8% against 53.8%.
Same board, both measured
Long documents
Listed context window
No call
Both take 1M tokens.
Listed by OpenRouter
Everyday cost
1K input + 500 output tokens
MiniMax M3.1 Flash
Claude Sonnet 5.5 $0.0070, MiniMax M3.1 Flash $0.0004 per turn.
List prices
At a glance
- Coding index
- Claude Sonnet 5.5 87.3 from 5 benchmarks, MiniMax M3.1 Flash 59.0 from 4 benchmarks.
- Widest category
- Coding, 18.1 points apart on average over 7 shared benchmarks.
- Widest single gap
- Terminal-Bench 4 (Vals AI): Claude Sonnet 5.5 64.1% against MiniMax M3.1 Flash 25.3%, 51.9 points apart on a 0 to 100 scale.
- Output price
- Claude Sonnet 5.5 $10.00 against MiniMax M3.1 Flash $0.60 per million output tokens, 16.7x apart.
- Context window
- Both take 1M tokens.
Benchmark by benchmark
First the score: boards each model leads, per category, where both have a result. Then every board, a category to a fold; bars are each result on a 0 to 100 scale, so compare the two in a row, not one row with another.
| Category | Claude Sonnet 5.5 | Bars | MiniMax M3.1 Flash | Ties |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Coding | 7 | 0 | ||
| Intelligence | 1 | 0 | ||
| Agentic work | 5 | 1 | ||
| Reasoning | 2 | 0 | ||
| Web design | 1 | 0 | ||
| General | 2 | 1 | ||
| All shared boards | 18 | 2 |
CodingLike-for-likeSix of these boards feed the Vibe Coding Index70
| Benchmark | Claude Sonnet 5.5 | MiniMax M3.1 Flash | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| LiveBench coding | 94.7% | 83.9% | Claude Sonnet 5.5 |
| LMArena WebDev | 1768 | 1587 | Claude Sonnet 5.5 |
| Terminal-Bench 4 (Vals AI) | 64.1% | 25.3% | Claude Sonnet 5.5 |
| Vibe Code Bench (Vals AI) | 92.4% | 73.9% | Claude Sonnet 5.5 |
| Code migration (Vals AI) | 69.8% | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 5.5 measured |
| ProgramBench (Vals AI) | 6.5% | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 5.5 measured |
| IOI (Vals AI) | 83.1% | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 5.5 measured |
| Terminal-Bench 2.1 (Vals AI) | 83.2% | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 5.5 measured |
| SWE-bench Multimodal (Vals AI) | 58.3% | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 5.5 measured |
| CyberBench (Vals AI) | 59.6% | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 5.5 measured |
| SciCode | 61.0% | 53.4% | Claude Sonnet 5.5 |
| FrontierCode | 52.1% | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 5.5 measured |
| FrontierSWE | 61.9% | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 5.5 measured |
| ALE-Bench | 1819.1 | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 5.5 measured |
| LMArena Text: coding | 1513 | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 5.5 measured |
| LMArena Text: software and IT | 1504 | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 5.5 measured |
| LMArena WebDev: React | 1817 | 1609 | Claude Sonnet 5.5 |
| LMArena WebDev: HTML | 1741 | 1529 | Claude Sonnet 5.5 |
| LMArena WebDev: from an image | 1737 | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 5.5 measured |
| SciCode | 13.8% | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 5.5 measured |
| SWE-Bench Pro V2 | 95.8% | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 5.5 measured |
| Neither model has a result on the other 22 boards here | |||
IntelligenceLike-for-likePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index10
| Benchmark | Claude Sonnet 5.5 | MiniMax M3.1 Flash | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| AA Intelligence Index | 56.0 | 42.7 | Claude Sonnet 5.5 |
| Epoch Capabilities Index | 166.2 | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 5.5 measured |
Agentic workLike-for-likePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index51
| Benchmark | Claude Sonnet 5.5 | MiniMax M3.1 Flash | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| Design Arena: agents building web apps | 1305 | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 5.5 measured |
| Design Arena: agents building mobile apps | 1260 | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 5.5 measured |
| Design Arena: spreadsheets | 1271 | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 5.5 measured |
| LiveBench research | 83.6% | 72.7% | Claude Sonnet 5.5 |
| LiveBench browser | 84.0% | 92.0% | MiniMax M3.1 Flash |
| LiveBench long agentic | 78.8% | 34.7% | Claude Sonnet 5.5 |
| SREBench (Vals AI) | 30.1% | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 5.5 measured |
| Finance Agent (Vals AI) | 58.1% | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 5.5 measured |
| Tax Agent Bench (Vals AI) | 42.0% | 32.1% | Claude Sonnet 5.5 |
| Legal Research Bench (Vals AI) | 48.1% | 34.1% | Claude Sonnet 5.5 |
| Harvey's Legal Agent Benchmark (Vals AI) | 10.4% | 7.5% | Claude Sonnet 5.5 |
| Excel Modeling Benchmark (Vals AI) | 75.7% | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 5.5 measured |
| BioMysteryBench (Vals AI) | 81.1% | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 5.5 measured |
| Terminal-Bench-Science (Vals AI) | 47.1% | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 5.5 measured |
| Vals Science Index | 59.1% | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 5.5 measured |
| APEX-Agents | 75.5% | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 5.5 measured |
| SpireClimb | 1.3% | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 5.5 measured |
| Vending-Bench 2 | $11,165 | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 5.5 measured |
| Neither model has a result on the other 24 boards here | |||
ReasoningLike-for-likePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index20
| Benchmark | Claude Sonnet 5.5 | MiniMax M3.1 Flash | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| LiveBench reasoning | 91.6% | 82.9% | Claude Sonnet 5.5 |
| MysteryMechanism (Vals AI) | 49.1% | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 5.5 measured |
| Humanity's Last Exam (Artificial Analysis run) | 55.0% | 48.0% | Claude Sonnet 5.5 |
| GPQA Diamond (Epoch AI run) | 95.6% | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 5.5 measured |
| Chess puzzles | 59.0% | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 5.5 measured |
| Mystery game puzzles | 65.0% | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 5.5 measured |
| LMArena Text: hard prompts | 1494 | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 5.5 measured |
| LMArena Text: expert | 1531 | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 5.5 measured |
| LMArena Text: hard prompts in English | 1502 | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 5.5 measured |
| LMArena Vision: diagrams | 1329 | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 5.5 measured |
| LMArena Vision: homework | 1331 | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 5.5 measured |
| Humanity's Last Exam (Scale run) | 37.5% | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 5.5 measured |
| Neither model has a result on the other 11 boards here | |||
MathDirectional onlyPublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index6 boards, none shared
| Benchmark | Claude Sonnet 5.5 | MiniMax M3.1 Flash | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| OTIS Mock AIME | 100.0% | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 5.5 measured |
| FrontierMath, tiers 1 to 3 | 88.8% | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 5.5 measured |
| FrontierMath, tier 4 | 80.5% | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 5.5 measured |
| ProofBench | 100.0% | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 5.5 measured |
| LMArena Text: math | 1497 | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 5.5 measured |
| LMArena Text: mathematical work | 1510 | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 5.5 measured |
| Neither model has a result on the other 8 boards here | |||
KnowledgeDirectional onlyPublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index6 boards, none shared
| Benchmark | Claude Sonnet 5.5 | MiniMax M3.1 Flash | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| MedCode (Vals AI) | 52.9% | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 5.5 measured |
| SimpleQA Verified | 46.5% | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 5.5 measured |
| LMArena Text: science | 1483 | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 5.5 measured |
| LMArena Text: medicine and healthcare | 1464 | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 5.5 measured |
| LMArena Text: legal and government | 1483 | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 5.5 measured |
| LMArena Text: business and finance | 1468 | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 5.5 measured |
| Neither model has a result on the other 14 boards here | |||
Web designLike-for-likePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index10
| Benchmark | Claude Sonnet 5.5 | MiniMax M3.1 Flash | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| Design Arena: websites | 1327 | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 5.5 measured |
| Design Arena: UI components | 1369 | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 5.5 measured |
| Design Arena: game dev | 1472 | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 5.5 measured |
| Design Arena: data viz | 1382 | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 5.5 measured |
| Design Arena: 3D | 1442 | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 5.5 measured |
| Design Arena: all code categories | 1365 | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 5.5 measured |
| LiveBench design | 85.0% | 74.0% | Claude Sonnet 5.5 |
| Neither model has a result on the other 2 boards here | |||
GeneralLike-for-likePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index21
| Benchmark | Claude Sonnet 5.5 | MiniMax M3.1 Flash | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| Vals Index | 70.8% | 53.8% | Claude Sonnet 5.5 |
| LiveBench data analysis | 59.5% | 71.4% | MiniMax M3.1 Flash |
| Public Benefits Bench (Vals AI) | 67.2% | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 5.5 measured |
| SAGE (Vals AI) | 51.8% | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 5.5 measured |
| MedScribe (Vals AI) | 91.1% | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 5.5 measured |
| Long context reasoning (AA-LCR) | 82.7% | 79.7% | Claude Sonnet 5.5 |
| DTBench | 97.3% | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 5.5 measured |
| LMCA | 68.3% | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 5.5 measured |
| Furniture assembly | 75.0% | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 5.5 measured |
| LMArena Text | 1473 | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 5.5 measured |
| LMArena Text: instruction following | 1492 | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 5.5 measured |
| LMArena Text: creative writing | 1467 | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 5.5 measured |
| LMArena Vision | 1287 | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 5.5 measured |
| LMArena Text: English | 1484 | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 5.5 measured |
| LMArena Text: non-English | 1456 | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 5.5 measured |
| LMArena Text: Chinese | 1535 | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 5.5 measured |
| LMArena Text: French | 1499 | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 5.5 measured |
| LMArena Text: Spanish | 1451 | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 5.5 measured |
| LMArena Text: Russian | 1454 | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 5.5 measured |
| LMArena Text: multi-turn | 1465 | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 5.5 measured |
| LMArena Text: longer queries | 1495 | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 5.5 measured |
| LMArena Text: writing and language | 1474 | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 5.5 measured |
| LMArena Text: entertainment and media | 1461 | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 5.5 measured |
| LMArena Vision: English | 1289 | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 5.5 measured |
| LMArena Vision: reading text | 1297 | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 5.5 measured |
| LMArena Vision: creative writing | 1242 | Not measured | Only Claude Sonnet 5.5 measured |
| Neither model has a result on the other 22 boards here | |||
Image generationNot comparablePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index0 boards, none shared
| Benchmark | Claude Sonnet 5.5 | MiniMax M3.1 Flash | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| Neither model has a result on 5 boards here | |||
What each workload costs
Three fixed token mixes at each model's listed price, so per-token rates become a bill.
Chat turn
1K input + 500 output tokens
MiniMax M3.1 Flash costs less
Repository review
50K input + 3K output tokens
MiniMax M3.1 Flash costs less
Agent loop
200K input + 10K output tokens
MiniMax M3.1 Flash costs less
Listed OpenRouter rates, without cache or batch discounts. A workload that does not fit a model's context window would need splitting.
Specification differences
The leading value in a row is marked; a row with a missing value names no leader. Our two rows are marked in red.
| Specification | Anthropic Claude Sonnet 5.5 | MiniMax M3.1 Flash |
|---|---|---|
| Maker | Anthropic | MiniMax |
| Weights | No public weights listed | No public weights listed |
| Released | September 28, 2026 | October 19, 2026 |
| Context window | 1M | 1M |
| Input $/Mtok | $2.00 | $0.15 |
| Output $/Mtok | $10.00 | $0.60 |
| Coding index | 87.3 | 59.0 |
| Independent measurements behind it | 5 | 4 |
| Cost per solved task | Not computable | Not computable |
| Source | OpenRouter listing | OpenRouter listing |
Questions
Is Claude Sonnet 5.5 better than MiniMax M3.1 Flash for coding?
Pick Claude Sonnet 5.5 for coding: it scores 87.3 on the Vibe Coding Index against 59.0 for MiniMax M3.1 Flash. Pick MiniMax M3.1 Flash for output tokens 16.7x cheaper ($0.60 vs $10.00 per million) and work measured by LiveBench browser or LiveBench data analysis, where it leads.
Which is cheaper, Claude Sonnet 5.5 or MiniMax M3.1 Flash?
Claude Sonnet 5.5 costs $2.00 per million input tokens and $10.00 per million output tokens; MiniMax M3.1 Flash costs $0.15 and $0.60. Cost per solved task is known for neither of them.
Which has the bigger context window, Claude Sonnet 5.5 or MiniMax M3.1 Flash?
Neither: both take 1M tokens.
How many benchmarks is the Claude Sonnet 5.5 vs MiniMax M3.1 Flash comparison based on?
20 benchmarks have a result for both models as of October 22, 2026. Claude Sonnet 5.5's coding index rests on 5 independent benchmarks and MiniMax M3.1 Flash's on 4. Where only one model has a result, the page says so instead of naming a winner.